Enactive interfaces and the new wave of studies in cognitive sciences

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Enactive interfaces and the new wave of studies
in cognitive sciences

• Elena Pasquinelli

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Enactive interfaces

• https//www.enactivenetwork.org/
• Enactive interfaces interfaces based on action
  and perception rather than on symbolic or iconic
  representations
• Bruner, 1966
• Strong accent on
• Action-perception loops
• Knowledge of the functioning of perceptual and
  motor systems
• Multimodal perception
• Acquisition of skilled behaviors

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Some examples

• Collaboration between sighted and blind children
• Haptic and sound devices haptic touch and
  audition can be used for helping blind children
  in drawing and following a map, but also for
  enhancing collaboration with sighted children
  (Certec Lab, Lund)
• Learning how to write Japanese e characters
• Reactive robots haptics and vision seem to do
  well in enhancing learners performances in the
  production of Japanese characters. Controlled
  haptic feedback (the experience of doing it
  right) seems then to count for efficient learning
  of tasks that involve skilled hand movements,
  such as writing (PERCRO Lab, Pisa)
• Creation of new experiences
• The pebble box haptic stimuli can be coupled
  with divergent acoustic stimuli (and even visual
  stimuli) so as to produce new experiences that
  cannot be undergone in the real world (QUB Lab,
  UK).

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A corresponding model of cognitive functioning

• Cognition is situated (Clancey, Brooks,
  Phylyshyn)
• in a body, in a physical world and also in a
  social one
• Cognition is distributed (Hutchins, Kirsh, Clark)
  
• the system composed of the organism and the
  external entity with which the organism is linked
  by a two way interaction is a cognitive system in
  its own right
• Cognition is embodied (Varela, Van Gelder,
  Thelen)
• Sensory-motor capacities, or the activity of the
  agent, are crucial in the enactment of the world
  and mind.

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The new wave of studies in cognitive sciences

• Opposition to the classicist view Boiled down
  to its essence, cognitive science proclaims that
  in one way or another our minds are computers
  Dennett, 1993, p. 126
• Cognition is not (limited to) being the mirror of
  reality and perception does not (only) consists
  of the representation of the world. This claim
  leads to the criticism of internal
  representations
• Cognitive processes are not (necessarily)
  centralized, i.e. there is no gap between
  cognitive processes and their surrounds
• Perception and cognition cannot be considered
  outside the frame of action and of the bodily
  possibilities

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Body matters some consequences upon technologies
for education

• Different bodies, different accesses to the
  world, and different styles of learning
• Importance of developing the capacity of
  exploration with multiple senses
• A proposal Developing VR multimodal simulations
  at school
• Importance of producing a meta-cognitive access
  to the role of body in knowledge
• A proposal Developing VR simulations for
  experiencing different combinations of action and
  perception
• Importance of producing embodied empathy
  (understanding how is it like to have a different
  body)
• A proposal Developing VR simulations for
  experiencing different ways of access to the
  world (VR for designers and teachers)

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Open issues for VR/cognitive sciences

• Can we transfer competences and acquire skills
  from the interaction with technological devices
  to the real world? Which are the drawbacks of
  contextualization?
• Which is the role of motor/perceptual interaction
  in the acquisition of more conceptual capacities
  and knowledge?
• Which are the cognitive capacities that are
  involved in simulations (VR, playing, )? How
  much realism is necessary? Which emotional
  reactions are triggered, and how? Ethical
  side-effects?